It’s not the least bit surprising that the Vancouver Canucks immediately made a change when the final curtain dropped on the 2025-26 season.

After all, the Canucks entered the season with every intention of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs in hopes of convincing Quinn Hughes to stay in Vancouver. Instead, they ended the season in last place, with Hughes long gone.

So, seemingly with the final horn still echoing around Rogers Place in Edmonton, Jim Rutherford let Patrik Allvin go as the Canucks’ general manager.

What’s somewhat surprising is that’s the only change that has been made so far. Somehow, head coach Adam Foote still has his job.

Unsurprisingly, finishing in last place isn’t conducive to job security for NHL head coaches. Four of the last five teams to finish in last place fired their head coach, with the one exception being the San Jose Sharks last season. In their case, they had already fired their previous head coach the previous season for finishing last, so Ryan Warsofsky was dealing with fairly low expectations.

But it’s not just the last-place finish. It’s that the Canucks will be hiring a new GM.

It’s not a given that a head coach will lose his job along with a GM, but the two often go hand-in-hand. That’s because a new GM typically wants to hire their own head coach.

A GM typically has a style of hockey that he wants to play and for which he wants to acquire players, and he will also want a head coach who can and wants to coach that style.

Rutherford knows this. He and Patrik Allvin weren’t exactly happy about having Bruce Boudreau foisted upon them by ownership when they were hired, and they turfed Boudreau, in uncomfortably brutal fashion, as soon as they felt they could.

But Rutherford feels like Foote deserves an opportunity to make a case with whoever he hires as the new GM.

“[The new GM] may like the current coach,” said Rutherford during Friday’s end-of-season press conference. “And I think respectfully, we should give our coach that chance. We can talk about different things about what happened with the team, but as long as I’ve been in this game, this coach has been dealt the hardest hand to deal with. And this is a very difficult year. So that’s why I want to be respectful and give both the new GM and the coach the chance to see what they think of each other.”

Let’s be clear: this has been a very difficult year for the Canucks. The trouble is, Foote’s coaching has been a major reason why the year has been so difficult.

Foote’s defensive system was a disaster, with players constantly uncertain of where to go and who to check. The emphasis on man-on-man coverage led to players chasing around the zone and to copious scoring chances directly in front of the net. The result: the most goals against in the league this season and the highest goals against since 1991 in franchise history.

On top of that, the penalty kill, which is heavily influenced by coaching, finished at 71.5% — one of the worst penalty kills in the history of the NHL.

Yes, the Canucks have a young defence corps, but that’s not much of an excuse when even the veterans struggled. Besides, Rutherford once said while Boudreau was still head coach, “If we were playing in a really strong structure, it would make it easier for our defence to play and it wouldn’t matter who was on our defence.”

That leads to the question: What prospective GM will want an inexperienced head coach who led his team to last place in the NHL with a historically bad home record and whose defensive system led to the most goals against the franchise has seen in 35 years?

Let’s flip it around: If a prospective GM wanted to keep Foote as head coach, it ought to be immediately disqualifying.

To be fair, winning won’t really be the point next season, though they’d surely like to do a little more winning on home ice. With the Canucks embarking on a rebuild, what they really need is a coach who can develop the team’s young talent.

Is that really Adam Foote?

Let’s set aside the fact that Foote’s defensive system seemed to have the Canucks’ young defence corps constantly questioning their instincts, which can’t be good for their development. Let’s instead talk about how Foote used his young players this past season.

While some young players eventually got elevated roles, Foote routinely relied on veterans long past when it was reasonable to do so.

According to a report from Thomas Drance at The Athletic, this was apparently a bone of contention between Foote and Allvin, who wanted his coach to play his young players more. Rutherford felt Allvin handled the situation poorly, even as the team apparently agreed with Allvin.

But there was good reason for Allvin to be frustrated. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Linus Karlsson was the Canucks’ most productive player at 5-on-5 this season, leading the team in 5-on-5 goals (13) and 5-on-5 points (29).

More than just points, Karlsson was also one of the Canucks’ top forwards by the underlying numbers, as one of just two forwards with a corsi percentage above 50%. The other was Kiefer Sherwood.

His 5-on-5 ice time, however, didn’t reflect that strong play. He averaged just 10:46 per game at 5-on-5, which was ranked 17th among Canucks forwards who played at least 100 5-on-5 minutes this season.

You know who led the Canucks’ forwards in average ice time at 5-on-5?

Evander Kane.

Gee, I can’t imagine why Allvin might have been frustrated with Foote.

That’s one of the more egregious examples, but there are others. Nikita Tolopilo was benched for a full two weeks while Kevin Lankinen played eight games in 16 days. In March. Lankinen ended up with an upper-body injury, and Tolopilo struggled to get back into his rhythm upon his return.

Instead of grooming Zeev Buium to be the Canucks’ next power play quarterback, Filip Hronek was primarily used on the first power play unit in the back half of the season.

Then there was David Kämpf getting ice time over Aatu Räty and Max Sasson, though that at least led to the Canucks getting an asset back from a Kämpf trade.

Foote would frequently say that he wanted to protect his young players and prevent their confidence from being crushed, as if the constant losing and confusing defensive system wasn’t doing that enough already.

Perhaps I’m only speaking for myself, but I have no faith in Foote’s ability to develop the Canucks’ next generation.

At every turn this season, Foote appeared to be out of his depth. Yes, he was dealt a tough hand, but he was entirely unable to make the most out of that hand.

The Canucks need to start fresh and give the new general manager a clean slate behind the bench.